Tag Archive: This Or The Apocalypse

Hello! This is Kyle Bishop, singer, songwriter, and piano player of the shitty band, Numbers. For some reason, HBIH thinks my opinion matters, and asked what I’ve been listening to this crazy year of 2012. So, without wasting anymore of your time, here are a few!

This Or The Apocalypse

Dead Years

01. Hell Praiser
02. Power Hawk
03. In Wolves
04. Americans
05. Hate The Ones You Love
06. You Owe No One But You
07. A Damn Moment
08. Gaunt And Fierce
09. Kill ‘Em With Guidance
10. Hard Branch To Snap

[09/25/12]
[eOne Music]

This Or The Apocalypse aren’t your standard Metalcore band. Just listen to Haunt What’s Left and you’ll see why. A personal favorite from 2010, it is one of the best metalcore releases to come out in a while, and what really made it so was its ability to groove. Produced by Chris Adler, the album is chock full of groovy sections, bouncy riffs, and awesome drum beats that make it fun to listen to. It was apparent that Adler had rubbed off on the group. However after losing a crucial member of their band in the form of drummer Grant MacFarland, it led one to be very skeptical as to whether or not they could still make a fun, groovy record that didn’t cause them to regress and fall into mediocrity like so many other bands have after such a strong release.

Lancaster, PA metalcore artists This Or The Apocalypse have debuted their video for their song “Subverse” from their 2010 album, Haunt What’s Left. Personally, I think this is the best song on album, and one of only two that really stuck with me and left an impression. The video is just the typical film the band playing idea, but it works for the intensity of the song. Enjoy.

If you’ve been paying attention to pretty much every metal site in existence at the moment, The Human Abstract’s comeback of ages Digital Veil has been garnering quite the acclaim. Its neoclassical inclinations, progressive riffs, and catchy breakdowns captures quite a broad appeal in the world of heavy music. Their song “Patterns” recently got the video treatment, similar in approach to their video for “Digital Veil”; The video isn’t special in and of itself, being a performance shot and all, but it’s easier to get people to listen to a new song if there’s some visuals accompanying the music, so any excuse to promote The Human Abstract’s stellar new album is alright by me.

Good news, fans of top notch metalcore! The Human Abstract are heading out on a headlining tour this spring, and they’re bringing Scale the Summit, This Or The Apocalypse, Letlive, Across The Sun, No Bragging Rights, and Elitist (on select dates). If you’re a part of our typical readership demographic, then I suppose I would be preaching to the choir about how sweet this billing is. The build-up of The Apocalypse, Scale The Summit, and The Human Abstract would be killer enough on its own. I’m not too familiar with Letlive or No Bragging Rights, but I’m sure Across the Sun and Elitist are excellent choices for support on a tour like this. This shouldn’t disappoint.

So, Darkest Hour, Born of Osiris, As Blood Runs Black, and The Human Abstract are going on a bit of a tour starting next month with a few friends; Sleeping Giant, In The Midst of Lions, and This Or The Apocalypse plan on showing up for a few dates! The Atticus Metal Tour III kicks off late February 25th and concludes March 27th.

It’s about time that this band of metalcore do-rights put a music video out (If one exists, I surely don’t know about it).

This or The Apocalypse have released their Sons of Nero-directed music video for their song “Charmer,” which is off of this years’ Haunt What’s Left. This is a great band that actually knows what it takes to make some good metalcore, so check them out, lest you thrive on not knowing any better.

Haunt What’s Left is out now on everyone’s favorite up-and-coming metal label Good Fight Music.

This past summer has been full of great tours here in North America, and one of the ones I’ve been most excited for is the Over The Limit Tour. With a fairly solid lineup of mostly techy deathcore bands, with a few exceptions, I was expecting a pretty good show. I’ll go ahead and tell you I was disappointed with what some of them had to offer, but the show only cost me $10 and it was only an hour drive to Ground Zero in Spartanburg SC from where I live so I’m not complaining.

Pennsylvanian metalcore band This or the Apocalypse were once on an MTV game show called Silent Library, where the team must remain as silent as possible while doing Jackass-like challenges. This is actually an old episode, airing last winter, but this is the first time I’ve seen it and I thought it was pretty fun. What sucks, however, is that it is never mentioned that they are in a band, while bands like All Time Low and Anarbor were also featured and recognized on the program. Fucking MTV. How does it work?

I’m sure the band aren’t complaining though. They got to be on MTV in some fashion, and as you’ll see, they walked away with a bit of cash.

If you’ve kept up with my posts at all, you already know that I am a huge fan of Lancaster metalcore outfit, This Or The Apocalypse. Well, I had the pleasure of not only seeing the band Saturday night, but also purchasing a solid copy of the still unreleased album, Haunt What’s Left. I’m sure I can speak for a large audience that we are aware of the stigma that metalcore caries and I’ve always looked to this band to help alleviate that. In short, I had high hopes for this album.

After listening, I found Haunt Whats Left to be pretty multifaceted album, each song having it’s own distinct vibe. There’s angry sounding songs like “Charmer” and “Hellish” and likewise, there’s the melodic “Subverse” and “Lamindae”. There’s “Toro” which is a straight-ahead metalcore rocker (relatively speaking) and “The Incoherent” which dabbles into the area of djent heavily.

Actually, I find one of the most appealing as well as interesting aspects of the record is just how much more “djenty” it is in comparison to the band’s older material as well other bands in the genre. While every song shows some of the characteristics, the song that really embraces this theme more than any other is “The Incoherent”. The song, “Hellish” also goes in that direction while at the same time, playing with some Egyptian sounding riffage (see After The Burial‘s “Cursing Ahkenaten”). This all just shows how really flexible This Or Apocalypse is, especially considering that I haven’t even touched on the melodiousness that the band has to offer. On the melodic side of things, we have songs like “Subverse” and “Lamindae”. Now, just because these songs are both melodic doesn’t make them the same. “Lamindae” utilizes catchy, fun metalcore riffs while “Subverse” keeps a more heartfelt, endearing vibe. While there are songs that stay to one end of the spectrum or the other, songs like “Toro” and “Hayseed” use the best of both worlds, melodic and angry.

While there’s a lot of good things to say about Haunt What’s Left, there’s also some notable negative feedback to be made. While near as obnoxious as other bands, there is a pretty clear reliance on breakdowns here (no big surprise there). Also as with most bands that make this change, the introduction of clean vocals are somewhat hard to ingest. While there’s plenty of good riffing going on in the record, none of it is really breaking any molds but when it comes to metalcore, that’s to be expected.

There isn’t tremendous ground being broken here but if you ask me, it’s a step in the right direction, a step that more metalcore bands should take. This Or The Apocalypse is playing some catchy yet clever music and if you’re a fan of metalcore or perhaps you’re looking for something with a little more depth than you find with bands in the genre, it could very well be a good piece to get your hands on.